


For Your Eyes Only

by aliatori



Series: From Insomnia with Love [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bond!AU, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Rivals to Lovers, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 14:55:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17082449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliatori/pseuds/aliatori
Summary: Crowe Altius is part of the Galadhian family, and the Galahdians have one rule: the only side they take is their own. Though risky, Crowe's task to acquire data on every patron of Insomnia's premier casino should be quick, quiet, and most importantly, not compromise the neutrality her people have so carefully maintained.Unfortunately for Crowe, neither 'quick' nor 'quiet' are in Aranea Highwind's vocabulary.





	For Your Eyes Only

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stopmopingstarthoping](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stopmopingstarthoping/gifts).



> I was lucky enough to get [stopmopingstarthoping](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stopmopingstarthoping) for the FFXV Holiday Gift Exchange, which meant I felt comfortable being a little self-indulgent with this fill. The prompt was "Aranea and Crowe piss off the authorities." Happy New Year and hope you enjoy!

Crowe stands side by side with Nyx on the ground level of The Leviathan, letting her gaze rove casually over the assembled crowd, senses assaulted with electronic bells and bright fluorescent lights. True, this casino is one of Insomnia’s classiest gambling hubs, but on the first floor, one of over 50, the masses still need to be pandered to. When Crowe turns her attention to Nyx, his gaze passes over her in a slow up and down motion, a gesture that used to annoy Crowe—and still sometimes does, depending on her mood—but given how much work she put into her outfit for this venture, she takes the wordless compliment for what it is.

Getting into the dress had taken patience. It’s an all black, strapless affair, the bodice curved into a sweetheart neckline and paneled with translucent lace, exposing her olive skin beneath. Once it hits the high waist, layers of asymmetrical silk mixed with swathes of lace fall to the floor. Top it off with a messy, elegant updo and handfuls of expensive, bejeweled hairpins decorating her hair and Crowe actually _looks_ the part. A black, oblong, diamond-encrusted minaudiere completes the ensemble, dangling from a bare shoulder from a silver chain. 

“I thought for sure I’d see you in a suit tonight.” Nyx raises a nonchalant eyebrow in her direction.

“Believe me, I thought about it.” Crowe tries to be subtle about admiring Nyx in return—black polished shoes, trousers, and suspenders over a sky blue shirt, forearm tattoos exposed by rolled up sleeves—but his smirk suggests she’s not as subtle as she thought. “Your plans in place?”

“Sure are. The even better news is my contact is ready early, so it’ll give you a bigger window to work your magic.”

At the word _contact_ , Crowe’s eyebrows shoot up. “Please tell me by ‘contact’ you don’t mean Gladiolus Amicitia.”

There’s only one phrase fit to describe Nyx’s expression: pleased as punch. “I _do_ mean him, yeah. Speaking of,” Nyx pauses briefly to check his watch, “it’s about that time. Text me when you have an update.”

“Get the information _first_ this time, Nyx,” Crowe admonishes.

He tosses her a roguish look over his shoulder, already on the way to his rendezvous. “No promises.”

Crowe huffs out a breath, sending tendrils of her loosely braided hair scattering. Nyx is a great leader for the Galahdians—far better than Drautos, may he rot slowly and painfully in hell—but Crowe has known him longer than most, and despite her love for him, his minor yet predictable foibles occasionally grate on her nerves.

No matter. She works best alone, and tonight, that’s exactly what she’s doing.

The click of her heels mutes as the floor transitions from marble to carpet. Hacking The Leviathan, she thinks as she moves past the gigantic, serpentine fountain in the casino’s lobby to the first floor proper, shouldn’t be possible. Her preliminary remote surveillance back at the mansion she calls home (well, her and every other Galahdian in Insomnia, it feels like some days) suggested airtight firewalls and encryption. Nyx had told her to call it, that they’d find another target, but Crowe was never a fan of quitting.

It came down to a thermometer in a fish tank.

Crowe approaches the gold plated counter and presents her membership card—with a false name, of course—flashing her best charming smile at the cashier.

The cashier, after taking the card and consulting the computer, offers Crowe a smile in return, sliding the membership card back to her with two fingers. Were Crowe not extensively trained in the art of observation, a skill necessary to thrive as part of the Galahdian family, she might have missed the faint purple tattoos on the cashier’s index and middle fingers. All of them have Ramuh’s lightning inked on their skin somewhere—Crowe’s hips are permanently cradled in jagged, electric lines, and Nyx’s markings extend from wrists to shoulders, over _actual_ lightning strike scars marring his chest, because the idiot doesn’t know the meaning of subtle—and the young woman in front of her, newly admitted a few months back, is no exception.

“Welcome back, Miss Gainsborough. If you wish to visit the premium select floors this evening, please don’t forget to insert your card once you board the elevator.”

“Thank you,” Crowe murmurs, retrieving the card and sliding it into the small clutch tucked under her arm. The card settles nicely between a modest stack of 100 gil bills, her phone, and a single metallic disk. The money is for appearances, the phone is for convenience, but the disc plays a crucial role in tonight’s mission: a brute force device capable of bypassing most simple passcode requirements. Aside from the thermometer in the fish tank, a weak link courtesy of the Internet of things, the rest of The Leviathan’s security is as formidable as the Tidemother herself, which is to be expected.

Her wine-dark lips curve upward in an irrepressible smile. If she pulls this off, if she can actually manage to download the entire database of stored information on The Leviathan's clientele, it will put her and the rest of the Galahdians at an incredible advantage during any future negotiations. Neither the Lucis Caelums nor the Izunias have a vested stake in the casino—the only bastion of anything close to neutrality outside of Galahdian turf—but players from both sides make their way through the doors all the same, whether tempted by the allure of chance or the temporary alleviation of boredom. 

Crowe’s never been one for gambling.

She prefers the sure thing, the certainty of data, the logic of protocol, the types of treasures that can be found in lines of code rather than high-end museums and designer stores. It’s a kind of magic, in its own way, and she intends to work her best tonight.

Once she reaches the elevator, she slides the fake membership card in the narrow slot below the embossed floor selection buttons. After withdrawing the card, Crowe taps on the circle that reads ‘PS’ and watches as it lights up.

The elevator begins to move.

Crowe never doubted that their new initiate would come through. Betrayal, in her experience, usually comes later, once the realization dawns on a new member that their complete loyalty to Galahdians first and Galahdians last isn’t an option. It wasn’t something she liked to contemplate—or deal with, which didn’t fall to her often, only in the event that Nyx, Libertus, and Tredd were all somehow occupied—but thankfully, it was rare enough. Many of them, herself included, really were refugees from Galahd, a country ravaged by war and natural disaster, but…

Family was family, after all.

The elevator comes to a gentle stop and the doors slide open, revealing the pearl and aquamarine decor of the premium select floor. While Crowe _greatly_ enjoys the look and feel of the strappy heels she’s wearing, she does have a fleeting wish for more practical footwear, wincing as her heels click across the polished marble flooring, staccato echoes in the quiet of the high rollers area. Determination far outweighs any nervousness on her part. A score this big will have impact for _years_ to come, and Crowe meditates on the payoff as she mulls on which lounge to wait in. Not the same one as Nyx. Between him and the Amicitia escort, there’s sure to be all kinds of bustle and activity she doesn’t want to get caught up in, no matter how much she needs it to happen for her plan to go forward.

Blackjack it is, she decides, sweeping into one of the posh lounges. She’ll consider it a tip for The Leviathan's trouble instead of a waste of hard earned Galahdian funds.

As faceless as her work is, as little signature as she tries to leave when she goes breaking into electronic backdoors, Crowe came to terms long ago with her notoriety as a player in Insomnia’s political sphere. One of the servers approaches and offers her a glass of red wine on a tray, the liquid inside the thick crystal the exact same colour as her lipstick. Crowe nods her thanks, accepts the glass with a smile, and winks one smokey eye at the beautiful young woman. Aside from the flush of her pale cheeks, the server doesn’t give any other sign she noticed, but Crowe accepts it all the same.

The advantage of Crowe’s ability to count cards is that she can draw her time out at the table as long as she wants. She settles on an hour, and in that hour, she wins and loses enough money to come out just below even.

Crowe waits two minutes after her phone vibrates in her purse before cashing out. She leaves the table and goes to a secluded corner to peek at the screen—if laptops are strictly prohibited, smartphones are highly frowned upon in the casino.

 **[Hero 23:08]:** Go.

As soon as Crowe reads the moniker for Nyx’s burner phone, her pulse quickens. 

Showtime.

It’s simple enough to excuse herself from the lounge, the other patrons likely operating under the assumption she’s in search of luckier pastures. In reality, Nyx’s signal meant he’d organized enough of a disturbance to get security out of their office on the premium select floor. What that disturbance was, she had _no_ idea—nor did she want to, because it was safer sometimes to be fuzzy on the details. 

This is a dance she knows the steps to.

Crowe stays as much as she can on the elegant, carpeted runners as she nonchalantly strolls in the direction of the security office. She’d drilled herself on every variation of the casino’s floor plans they could acquire, so finding the office isn’t the hard part. The premium, high roller floors are always fairly open, what with maintaining the illusion of exclusivity, but Crowe sends up a quick prayer of thanks to Ramuh that no one gets the bright idea to obstruct her path to the office.

Her eyes dart back and forth as she approaches the door, holding her breath in a quest for utter silence. She’s not sure she even _would_ hear anything through the security office door, but she’s always been fond of the expression ‘measure twice, cut once’, particularly when failure involves dire consequences for her and her entire family. Once Crowe is satisfied that the coast is clear, she fishes the metallic disk out of her minaudiere and affixes it to the numeric keypad beside the door.

Though relying on passwords composed of a single character type was a big problem for The Leviathan, it serves as a wedge to get Crowe’s foot in the door. With a few tapped commands from her phone, the device begins its work, searching for the correct passcode. Normally, the door would be force locked and an alert sent to The Leviathan’s security for too many failed attempts, but the beauty of Crowe’s gem is that it doesn’t need to actually _input_ the passwords to test them, instead simulating the outcome independently.

One of her better creations, if she does say so herself.

As expected, the device completes its run in less than a minute. The light beside the keypad flashes green. Crowe removes the disc, puts it back in her clutch, and opens the door, treading lightly to avoid the click of her heels.

When she scans the empty office, she smiles; to anyone else, this is just a room filled with a wall full of monitors and two desktop PCs, but to Crowe, it’s like opening the vault to a long lost tomb, one full of priceless artifacts and treasures.

She may not have been able to bring her own computer in, but using the casino’s computers… they practically rolled out the red carpet for her.

Still, Crowe knows she doesn’t have much time. Whatever shit Nyx kicked up isn’t going to last forever, especially not long enough to keep the security office empty of both guards for much longer. She settles in one of the swiveling office chairs in front of a desktop—the seat still warm from its previous occupant—cracks her knuckles, and gets to work. A delighted laugh bubbles from her lips as Crowe realizes the computer was left _unlocked_. She’s not going to complain about a stroke of luck, though, especially not luck where it counts, here with her bejeweled fingers tapping out keystrokes on a computer hooked up to The Leviathan’s own intranet _and_ extranet.

None of the family asks for the details of what Crowe does for them, and even if they did, Crowe isn’t sure she could explain it, not without years of time on her hands and more patience than she possesses. Navigating through The Leviathan’s systems proves easier than she expects, and soon she has the database pulled up and ready for upload.

“Jackpot,” Crowe whispers to herself, a victorious smile curving her burgundy lips.

Thirty more seconds and Crowe establishes an uplink using the unsecure node that the smart thermometer provides. Having the physical data on her person is too risky, but having it stashed offsite in the cloud, in the equivalent of an offshore Altissian bank, that’s far more preferable.

One firm tap on the ‘Enter’ key and the upload begins. Four minutes and seventeen seconds is all that stands between Crowe and bringing home a wealth of data on Insomnia’s most influential players.

Twenty seven seconds into the upload, the security office bursts open with an ear-splitting explosion.

The force of the blast knocks Crowe from her position on the chair, sending her sprawling across the smooth marble floor, ears ringing. A cloud of smoke fills the room and stings her eyes badly enough to make them water. When Crowe tries to take a deep breath and get her bearings, the smoke fills her lungs as well, and she hacks and splutters out several deep coughs in quick succession.

“Looks like I’m late to the party.”

Shit. Crowe _knows_ that voice.

Scrubbing at her eyes with the back of one hand and pushing herself to the feet with the other, Crowe’s suspicions are confirmed: none other than Aranea Highwind herself stands in the clearing fog, blood red dress brilliant against the muted decor of the premium select floor. A smear of soot highlights one pale cheek, but otherwise Aranea appears perfectly calm as she studies Crowe, olive green gaze sweeping across the room before fixing on the computer behind Crowe.

“What are you doing here?” Crowe asks, voice hoarse from the smoke, hands reaching to fix the silver hairpins in her hair from nervous habit.

“I could ask you the same question, sweetheart,” Aranea remarks. She grins and wiggles one finger back and forth. “Seems like both of us are going to be on the naughty list for Yuletide. A prominent figure of the _neutral_ Galahdians all alone in an unauthorized area of the casino? It doesn’t look great.” As she speaks, Aranea begins to move towards the computer, all business as opposed to slink she normally displays in videos from public events.

Not that Crowe has _watched_ those videos for any reason aside from intelligence gathering. No.

“You know what else doesn’t look great? A woman with known Izunia connections using demolitions to burst into the same unauthorized area,” Crowe counters, chin tilted up, subtly moving to block Aranea’s access to the computer. A glance over her shoulder shows two minutes and twenty-six seconds left on the upload.

“Sorry about that. I really wasn’t expecting anyone to be in here,” Aranea says casually, and she sounds sincere enough that Crowe almost believes her. “Also, I have _no idea_ what you could possibly mean about Izunia connections.” She bats her eyelashes at Crowe, and Crowe does _not_ believe the second part—and also has to take a deep breath for her hormones to calm down.

“I guess you expected wrong.”

Aranea laughs, and there’s a husk to it that definitely doesn’t put a match to the gasoline of Crowe’s adrenaline—absolutely not. “I guess I did.” She tilts her head to one side, silver braid falling over her bare shoulder, the tip of it nestled in the generous cleavage pushed up by whatever’s underneath her dress. Aranea produces a USB drive from somewhere on her person and examines it thoughtfully. “I’m here to stick this in one of The Leviathan’s computers and let… whatever’s installed on it do its work. And if I had to make another guess… and I don’t think this one is wrong… whatever is on this drive is going to royally screw up the operation you have going on behind you.”

“Seems right.” Crowe swallows around a sudden lump in her throat, her heart pounding in her chest, every sense heightened to a razor’s edge as Aranea closes the gap between them.

“So what do you say, Miss Altius?” Aranea asks, and she has the audacity to tip Crowe’s chin up with a single finger. “Are you going to try to stop me?”

Crowe responds with the only option left to her—she knees Aranea in the gut as hard as she can, gratified to hear the wheeze and soft grunt as she knocks the air out of the other woman.

That’s about where the gratification ends. Aranea actually _laughs_ before lunging towards Crowe, a delighted sparkle highlighting the bloodlust in her eyes.

Crowe knows she’s in over her head, knows she excels at the technology and the information far more than fistfighting, but you don’t help run the family without making sure you can throw a punch or two. All she has to do is last less than two minutes (it must be less than two minutes by now) and somehow get out of the casino alive. When Aranea locks her in a grapple, her grip shockingly strong and vice-like on Crowe’s arms, it’s all Crowe can manage to change the direction of Aranea’s attack. The breath leaves her in a sudden rush as she’s slammed against the security desk, toppling the unoccupied computer and one of the many monitors cracking from the force of the blow.

Quick, quick, quick. Crowe runs through her limited repertoire of tactics and decides on a favourite, going limp in Aranea’s arms. Aranea relaxes her grip on Crowe slightly, but it’s enough breathing room for what Crowe has in mind; she tucks her chin and surges forward, aiming for Aranea’s nose with the top corner of her head.

There’s some truth to Galahdians fighting dirty, after all.

Aranea dodges the worst of the strike, but Crowe still connects with her lip, and a few droplets of blood scatter across the monitors as Aranea’s lip splits, crimson liquid joining the red of her lipstick. A sheen of pink coats her white teeth as she smiles as Crowe, right before sweeping Crowe’s legs out from under her and sending her tumbling to the floor again. Before Crowe can recover, Aranea is pinning her down, sitting on Crowe’s chest, knees holding her shoulders down at a painful angle. Crowe gives a few kicks, trying to toss Aranea off her, but they’re futile as Aranea sits still as stone on top of Crowe, leaning down until their faces are close—but not close enough for Crowe to bite any part of it, which she desperately would like to do, if only for the chance to break free.

“I love a woman with some fight in her,” Aranea drawls, finger swooping in and out to tap Crowe on the nose before Crowe can do anything about it. Aranea sits within reach of the still functional computer, and she produces the USB drive again, still somehow in tact, and fumbles to insert it inside USB slot.

Crowe, angry and embarrassed and _turned on_ despite every sensible instinct she has, _surges_ underneath Aranea, adrenaline lending her strength beyond her limits, and manages to buck Aranea off her and away from the computer. Crowe lunges like a woman possessed, almost losing her balance as one of her heels breaks, and flings herself on top of Aranea, forearm forward, aiming for Aranea’s throat.

Aranea catches Crowe’s arm and _twists,_ sending a sharp lance of pain through the limb. Crowe has no choice but to roll with the attack before Aranea dislocates her shoulder, which puts her on her back again. Aranea capitalizes on the position and fists a hand in Crowe’s hair, sending one of her hairpins tumbling to the floor, and yanks her head to the side. 

Crowe, cheek pressed to the tile floor, can see the computer monitor now, and she watches triumphantly as the timer goes from three seconds, to two, to one, until it flashes complete.

“Too late,” Crowe whispers.

Aranea sighs and, to Crowe’s vehement surprise, releases her grip on Crowe’s hair and stands, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand. “My partner is never going to let me live this one down. Undone by my own thirst.” She eyes the USB stick, now resting on the floor beside Crowe’s hairpin, and scoops them both up.

Crowe scrambles to her feet and eyes Aranea warily. She opens her mouth to ask a question— _what now—_ but the words are drowned out by the loud, incessant blaring of alarms shrieking through the office.

Of course. Of _course_. Crowe isn’t sure whether or not something in her upload protocol tripped up the security system; it seems unlikely, given how much testing she did before tonight, but it’s always a possibility. The more _likely_ reason is because Aranea _blew up_ the goddamn door, since the alarms for potential threats are set on a delay to give the casino time to handle the threat without alerting the patrons.

Crowe has to get back to Nyx. She starts to move towards the door, but a calloused hand on her upper arm stops her.

“Let me go!” Crowe yells over the alarms.

Focus sharpens Aranea’s features. “You run back to Ulric—no, don’t glare at me, I’m not stupid—you run back to Ulric, you’re going to drag all this heat and trouble with you. We gotta get out of here another way… together.”

“We don’t have to do _anything_ together.”

“Really? Because the headbutting is pretty cute, but it’s not going to get you past the droves of security about to swarm this office, let alone the police backup that’s inevitably on the way.”

Crowe frowns but stops trying to pull away from Aranea. She hates that the other woman has a point, detests that Aranea looks so calm and collected in the face of crisis, that the trickle of dried blood from the corner of her mouth somehow heightens her beauty. “Fine. What’s the plan?”

“You clearly didn’t come here without an escape route.”

“Service elevator. Goes right to the ground floor, and I have a key that will operate it,” Crowe says above the alarms, grabbing her minaudiere from where it sits sprawled on the floor and finding its contents still in tact.

“Good. I’ll get you to the elevator, you get us down, and we’ll go our separate ways.”

There’s no time for hesitation, and yet Crowe hesitates.

Aranea presses the issue further. “Crowe… hopefully you don’t mind if I call you Crowe… do you trust me?”

“No.” How ironic that a single word answers both questions for her.

“Good.” Aranea smiles, sultry and knowing. “You shouldn’t, as a general rule. But you can tonight. We can go back to being enemies once we’re out of here.”

“Fine,” Crowe murmurs with a nod, because she has no other choice, unable to shake the feeling she’s just made the infamous Inferian’s Gambit.

She doesn’t have time to beat herself up, though, because as soon as she signals her agreement, casino security pours through the blasted open door, tasers and nightsticks and guns at the ready. Crowe freezes like a spiracorn in headlights; her skillset entails a reasonable amount of self defense, but her true expertise lies in hacking and technology, and she can’t help but feel woefully terrified for a long moment at how out of her element she is before determination sets in.

Thankfully, Aranea is _in_ her element.

It dawns on Crowe that Aranea truly was toying with her during their fight. She moves with all the grace of a dancer, a dancer whose entire routine was choreographed in ultraviolence. Aranea breaks the wrist of one of the guards with a firearm first, the crack nauseating in the close confines of the room, and catches his gun midair, whirling around and pointing it at the other armed guard’s head.

“No killing!” Crowe calls.

“No _fun_!” Aranea calls back, but lowers her aim and shoots the guard in both kneecaps, one after the other, blood and bits of bone spraying as he begins to scream with pain. Not one to be deterred by anyone’s suffering, Aranea’s momentum carries her into a full roundhouse kick, red silk whirling around her like flower petals as she catches a different guard right in the temple with a vicious strike. He flies back and slumps against the wall, clearly unconscious.

Crowe has enough sense to leap out of the way of a third security officer, who points a taser at her and fires the probes, which fly by harmlessly. Aranea’s legs coil right before she _jumps_ at the same officer, thighs clamped around his head and neck, and takes him down, one hand still occupied with her stolen gun. As she bears down, his face purples with imminent asphyxiation, and Aranea releases him as soon as he stops struggling. A fourth guard, who makes the mistake of getting inside Aranea’s reach to assist his friend, earns a punch straight to the groin and folds like crumpled paper beneath the force of the strike. Aranea stands, snatches the taser from the guard rolling on the ground and howling, and fires it at the fifth and final guard, probes catching him straight in the chest. The electric crackle as he falls to the ground, body jerking, buzzes over the sounds of the alarm.

Crowe doesn’t realize she’s staring and catching flies until Aranea motions her forward.

“Come on! We don’t have all day!”

The two of them file out of the security office into the hallway, but before they can round the corner leading to the service elevator, Aranea throws an arm out in front of Crowe. Several unbearably long seconds pass before Aranea nods and beckons her with one hand.

As they sprint down the hallway, Crowe ditches her shoes, the straps having been loosened by all the active chaos. Running down The Leviathan’s hallway barefoot with one of Ardyn Izunia’s foremost lieutenants had _not_ been part of any of their mock scenarios. As they pass by the juncture that would lead to Nyx, Crowe hesitates for a millisecond, desperately wishing she could get back to Nyx and let him know what’s going on. But Aranea had been right—it would be better to lead the heat _away_ from Nyx instead of towards him, and Crowe could only pray to Ramuh that he had the good sense not to make things worse.

Once they clear several corridors worth of distance, they arrive at the service elevator, and Aranea stands guard while Crowe retrieves her membership card with trembling fingers. She inserts it into the slot beneath the keypad on the first try, which counts for something given how much pure adrenaline still courses through her veins. The doors seem to swing open in slow motion; Crowe pushes into the elevator before they fully retract. More guards must have followed them, because even though Crowe is busy mashing the door close button with two fingers after selecting the ground floor as their destination, three more gunshots crack through the air, the acrid scent of gunpowder streaming into her nose. Aranea reverses into the elevator and keeps her handgun trained on the crack until it disappears entirely.

The two of them make eye contact, luminous green on rich brown, and Crowe is pleased to notice she’s not the only one breathing hard. Smooth jazz pipes through the elevator speakers, oddly incongruous with the gravity of the situation at hand, and Crowe can’t help but give a high, nervous laugh at the irony of it all. Aranea chuckles too, shaking her head before flipping open the magazine of the handgun and checking the bullets left in it.

“What’s the plan on the ground floor?” Crowe asks.

“The plan,” Aranea asserts, sliding the mag back into the handgun with expert efficiency, “is to run right through the main aisle and out the front doors.”

“Are you _serious_?” Crowe demands, bewildered. “We’ll be right in the middle of hundreds of civilians, not to mention on every damn security feed this place has.”

“You’re a hacker, right? Can’t you scrub the security tapes after?”

Crowe bristles with wounded pride. “Of course I can, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’ll have at least an hour to identify us before I can get to work.”

“See, this is where our thinking differs. I don’t give a damn whether or not they know who I am—who we are, because really, we’re in this together now, kitten. I’m _far_ more concerned with what they can prove after the fact, which requires evidence, which they’re in short supply of. Would be in even _shorter_ supply if someone had let me tie off the loose ends back in the security office, but my point still stands.”

“Don’t call me kitten,” Crowe says flatly. “Or reprimand me for not wanting people to be _murdered_ for the sake of a database.” Too late, she realizes she’s just revealed her purpose in being at The Leviathan, and Aranea doesn’t miss a beat.

“A database.” Aranea’s lips press together in a thin line, her silver brows scrunched in thought. “Oh,” she breathes softly, then adds in a louder tone, “ _oh_. Oh, that’s clever. How does the saying go? ‘A Galahdian with a secret is like a hangman with a noose’? And you just stole the whole damn rope.”

Crowe glares daggers at her and says nothing. Her stony silence doesn’t stop Aranea from looking beautifully, wonderfully, _exquisitely_ pleased with herself. Rather than stare at Aranea, because that act will lead nowhere productive, Crowe turns her attention to the LED display at the top of the elevator and wills her heart to stop beating so Six-damned fast.

“When those doors open, you’d better be ready to follow my lead. Hope you’re a fast runner,” Aranea drawls.

“Hope you’re fast _enough_ ,” Crowe fires back.

A soft ding announces their arrival to the ground floor.

The elevator doors open.

And then, all hell breaks loose.

Aranea takes off at a sprint—how she manages to run in heels, even ones that are thick and sturdy, is beyond Crowe—and Crowe follows suit, bare feet slapping against the tile of the casino floor. Crowe notices the swivel of heads in their direction as Aranea threads them through the crowd, a human shaped fiber through a casino-sized needle. She’s impressed with Aranea’s dexterity and control, though after Aranea’s demonstration in the security office and with everything Crowe knows about her, she supposes she shouldn’t be.

She also _really_ shouldn’t be admiring Aranea while running for her life and livelihood, but there doesn’t seem to be any stopping that, either.

Their path takes them straight towards a cluster of armed security guards, the black of their uniforms like a spot of ink against the bright distraction of the casino backdrop. When Aranea doesn’t change their course, Crowe gives a nervous groan of hesitation and stays right on her trail. Aranea jumps, soars through the air in a powerful arc, and lands directly on top of a row of slow machines. Crowe stumbles, knowing there’s no way she’s going to make the same jump, and chooses an alternate path instead, hopping up on a stool in front of a vacant machine and clambering on top of the row in pursuit of Aranea.

Crowe has a handful of seconds to process Aranea’s intentions before Aranea leaps to the adjacent row of slot machines when she reaches the end of the current row. Groaning, Crowe prepares herself to jump and does so, only staggering slightly as she sticks the landing, thanks to her bare feet with more traction, most likely. They continue this game of leapfrog for several minutes—minutes that pass like hours—and Crowe nervously notes the pursuing guards on either side of the slot machines, guards outfitted with similar weaponry as the ones in the office upstairs. The only option Crowe has, in a theme that defines her entire life to this point, is to keep moving forward, and the only difference is that she’s following Aranea’s graceful lead, the sound of her _laughter_ as her pale legs flash beneath the whirling red of her dress.

Soon enough, they’re at the front door, and Aranea and Crowe reach the same compartment of the revolving door together. Aranea shoves a well-dressed woman to the side so they can enter the door, and both of them are sweating and panting from exertion in the clear chamber, the din of the crowd strangely muted.

The door swings around to the front of the casino, and Crowe follows Aranea into the chill night air, the air even colder against her sweat-damp skin, too much of it exposed by the couture dress. Aranea grabs Crowe by the hand and drags her to the left, and it doesn’t seem important for Crowe to protest that she doesn’t _need_ to be held by the hand.

“Where are we going?” Crowe pants out as her lungs burn, her stamina nearing its end.

“My ride.”

 _My ride_ , as Aranea so succinctly indicated, is a luxurious beast of a motorcycle with a red and black paint job, parked illegally in an alley three blocks from the casino. Crowe can admit to herself that it’s a good, secluded spot, even as she registers the inevitable conclusion.

“Fuck!” Aranea swears, patting her chest frantically. “My goddamn keys. Must have dropped them somewhere on the way out. _Fuck!_ ” she repeats again in a hiss.

Crowe bursts into hysterical laughter at the irony of the situation; as she laughs, she removes one of the many hairpins from her hair and breaks a thin section of the expensive ornament off. “You’re in luck, _Miss Highwind_.”

“You can’t be seriously about to hotwire my bike,” Aranea observes flatly.

“What else are we going to do? Call Kweh?” Crowe’s voice drips with unrestrained sarcasm.

“How do you even know how to do this? Hotwiring and hacking aren’t in the same wheelhouse.”

“You can send Nyx a fruit basket later. He loses his keys at the same rate he loses phone numbers, and I’ve been unfortunate enough to be stuck with him during several of those occasions. I got tired of waiting for someone to come pick us up every time,” Crowe explains, tongue between her lips as she removes the coverings from the ignition wires.

“So you just… learn to hotwire a bike. You’resomething else.” Aranea pauses and smiles at Crowe, the first genuine smile of the night. “I _like_ you.” 

Crowe has a minute to bask in Aranea’s admiration, a flush dusting her cheeks, before she hears the sirens. “Shit,” she mutters, “shit, shit, _shit_.” She fumbles as she separates the wires connected to the handlebar from the ones connected to the bike to find the speaker wire.

“If you can do this any faster, now would be the time,” Aranea observes, like she’s commenting on the weather.

“Shut _up_. I’m trying to work.” Crowe takes hold of one speaker wire, slides it into the ignition, and then takes the other, trying to thread it into the ignition and jump start the motorcycle.

The sirens grow louder, closer.

“Any day now.”

“Be _quiet!_ ”

Crowe focuses on the dashboard of the bike and, as she slides the other speaker wire in the ignition, searches for any sign of a light. As she eases the second wire into the narrow opening, a green light appears on the dashboard. “Start the bike!” Crowe yells, standing up straight from her hunched position.

Aranea reaches over to press the ignition and the bike roars to life. No sooner than the bike turns on and she’s swinging a leg over the leather seat, glancing over her shoulder at Crowe, wisps of her silver hair catching the bright lights of the city. “Get on. We need to go, _now.”_

Blue and red siren lights illuminate the sides of the surrounding buildings, their noise impossibly loud as it echoes off the alley walls. Crowe leaps on the back of the bike and grabs onto Aranea’s waist—no time for modesty or apprehension when they needed to be gone several minutes ago. She’s used to being a passenger, but nothing quite prepares Crowe for the powerful rumble of the bike between her thighs as Aranea guns the motorcycle, or the feel of her body pressed up against Aranea’s firm, muscular back as they roar through the alley and towards the main street.

Danger layered on danger on danger. That’s all Crowe can think about as Aranea rockets them down the crowded Insomnian streets, all the primetime traffic of a Friday night present. She’s so hopped up on various stress hormones that she barely feels the frigid chill of the air against her bare skin, the torn and frayed edges of her dress flapping violently in the air. Neither of them are appropriately geared for this, and Crowe would laugh if her teeth weren’t chattering with nerves and cold. Crowe wonders how Aranea can even _see_ with how fast they’re going, but she answers her own question when she glances up and sees the familiar band of motorcycle goggles around the back of Aranea’s head.

Her stomach drops to her feet as Aranea takes them through a tight turn, the motorcycle tipping to nearly a 45 degree angle, wheels spinning and world tilting. The sirens don’t seem to be getting any closer from what Crowe can tell, but they also don’t seem to be getting further, and Crowe can still see the lights flashing in technicolour pursuit behind them. As close as she’s pressed to Aranea’s back, she can feel Aranea speaking, but there’s no way she can make out the words, their sound immediately snatched by wind and sirens alike.

It occurs to Crowe that she has no idea where Aranea is taking them. A second thought follows the first—Crowe doesn’t care, as long as it gets them to safety. She buries her face between Aranea’s shoulders and hangs on for dear life, fighting a wave of nauseating vertigo as Aranea hops a median and drives into oncoming traffic. The bike weaves back and forth, engine revving and quieting as Aranea manipulates the accelerator, and Crowe would be impressed if she weren’t absolutely terrified.

After several long, terrifying minutes, Crowe risks a glance over Aranea’s shoulder and sees a line of police cars forming a blockade in the middle of the next intersection. 

“Hang on!” Aranea yells.

 _Already got that covered_ , Crowe thinks, gritting her teeth as the motorcycle revs up once more… heading full speed towards the blockade.

“Are you _insane_?!” Crowe screams, but if Aranea hears her, she doesn’t give any indication.

The pieces of Aranea’s plan fall into place. The police blockade sits adjacent to a high rise under construction, and in the construction site is a pile of building materials that could feasibly be used as a ramp.

A haphazard wooden and metal angle that Aranea intends to use to go _over_ the blockade, with neither of them wearing helmets.

Crowe has enough time for one quick prayer before the bike hits the makeshift ramp, tires thumping along the uneven surface. One final roar of the engine and they’re sailing through the air.

Time suspends. Crowe wants to close her eyes, but she turns her gaze downward, her ass lifted off the seat from the airtime—only the fact that she’s clinging to Aranea keeps her from being tossed off the motorcycle like a ragdoll. She sees one police officer in particular staring up at them, mouth open, one hand on the side of her cropped, red undercut, the only element of the scene in focus.

And then the bike hits the ground, and Crowe’s skeleton rearranges itself with the force of the impact. Aranea, for her part, doesn’t seem to be effected, as she simply gives the bike more gas and speeds off along the nearest straightaway, a sidestreet with relatively few stoplights.

“How do you feel about helicopter rides?” Aranea calls over the noise.

“What?!” Crowe isn’t quite sure if she parsed that sentence correctly.

“Good!” Aranea flashes a thumbs up over her shoulder before sending the bike into another hairpin turn.

Over the urge to vomit and the pounding of her heart, Crowe wonders if she’s gone absolutely crazy. Maybe she’s hearing things. Maybe the stress of the whole evening has been one big hallucination and she’s back in her bed, data safely in her own computer, and the mission was a success.

Crowe hears the helicopter before she can lock eyes on it.

Aranea snakes them through several side streets, blowing red lights and stop signs along the way, other vehicles blaring their horns. The choppy pulse of air from the helicopter joins the other noises: distant sirens, honking horns, whipping wind, roaring ears. The helicopter is clearly tailing Aranea, though Crowe isn’t sure if being tailed is a good thing or not. Aranea doesn’t seem to be avoiding it—if anything, she keeps making a serious of calculated moves, less erratic than when they were peeling away from The Leviathan, like she knows where she’s going now.

One near miss with a pickup truck later, Crowe’s entire body has turned into one long, silent scream. The helicopter hovers directly above them, and before Crowe can put two and two together in a concrete fashion, the bike slows down and comes to a stop in some sort of dilapidated, industrial clearing.

That’s when Crowe sees the rope dangling from the helicopter, ten feet away from her and Aranea.

“Hope you’ve got some upper body strength on you,” Aranea says over her shoulder, full lips curved in a dazzling smile.

“You can’t expect me to climb a _rope ladder_ to get on a helicopter. Can’t they land?!” Crowe asks, chest heaving.

“What else are you gonna do? Call Kweh?” Aranea parrots Crowe’s own words back to her with such smug satisfaction that Crowe wants to punch her.

Or kiss her. The wires are getting a little crossed, here.

“No time to waste, Miss Altius. Let’s get moving.”

Aranea turns off the bike, dismounts, and jogs towards the waiting rope ladder. The whole night has been a long series of rocks and hard places for Crowe, and right now, the prospect of climbing a flimsy, dangling rope ladder to board a moving helicopter is the hardest place of them all. Aranea begins her ascent easily and moves up the ladder enough to give Crowe space to join her. Crowe, who’s no slouch in the gym, isn’t worried so much about the upper body strength or balance as she is… 

About the _heights_.

As soon as Crowe’s bare feet are curled around the bottommost rung, Aranea lifts her arm and spins her hand in a snappy circular motion. Whoever is piloting the helicopter must take it for a signal to go, because then they start to _move_ , and Crowe considers it a roaring success that she doesn’t piss herself in terror right away.

The helicopter moves up and away from the abandoned industrial complex, and the ladder immediately begins to violently sway and twist in the wind. Crowe swallows down her fear and concentrates every last bit of focus she has on moving up the ladder, one rung at a time. She’s done difficult things before, incredibly difficult things, she tells herself, ignoring the painful jolt of panic in her chest as her foot slips on the third step up. Wait until she tells Nyx. Bragging rights for the next five years, at least.

It’s just like anything else. The slow, methodical approach hasn’t let Crowe down yet, and it won’t let her down now.

No _looking_ down, though. Absolutely no looking down.

One hand up. The other hand up. One foot up. The other foot up. It doesn’t matter if she has to wait several seconds for the ladder to fall relatively still between steps, or that the wind is howling as the helicopter flies over Insomnia, or that Aranea has already disappeared into the open door at the top of the ladder.

One step. Another step. Climbing up, forward, never back. It’s the promise she and Nyx made when Drautos sold them out, when they had to rebuild from the ground up.

Forward. Never back.

Crowe makes it to the second-most rung from the top when the ladder gives a violent jerk as the helicopter changes course abruptly. Her palm slips from the rung, which makes her lose her balance elsewhere, feet sliding off the lower rung, and Crowe believes with all her heart for one terrifying second that she’s going to fall to her death from the nighttime Insomnian sky.

A strong arm snatches hers in an iron grip, and Crowe looks up to find Aranea holding her up, green eyes wide with pure terror, silver braid whipping in the wind. Instinct makes Crowe reach for Aranea with her free hand, and soon Aranea has a hold on both her arms, pulling her up with a strength Crowe has seen demonstrated all night—a strength that’s saved her life twice.

As soon as she’s pulled onto the floor of the helicopter, Crowe begins to shake uncontrollably. Aranea slides a headset over her ears, which muffles the overwhelming noise of the helicopter and also opens up communication.

“You’re a natural at this,” Aranea says over the headset, and she’s stroking Crowe’s back in soothing passes at the same time. “Biggs and Wedge are very impressed.”

“Good,” Crowe croaks.

Then she drops her head onto Aranea’s shoulder, allegiances be damned, and loses consciousness.

* * *

When Crowe opens her eyes, the scenery has changed completely.

She’s not in a helicopter anymore, which is a goddamn blessing. But she’s also… not anywhere she recognizes. It appears to be a luxurious, open concept apartment decorated in clean, minimalist lines, lots of cream with red and black accents. Crowe shifts and props herself on her elbows to get a better look from her position on a leather sectional. A blanket drops from her shoulders to her lap as she peers at her surroundings.

“Hey, you’re awake.”

Right. Aranea Highwind. The casino. The data. The motorcycle. The night comes back to her in bits and bytes, like data loading over an old dial-up connection.

The woman in question pads from the kitchen to the couch, a highball in each hand, and offers one to Crowe once she’s close enough to reach. “Vodka cran? I thought you might want a drink after tonight, but I’m okay having both for myself.” Aranea no longer wears the elegant red dress, instead in a red tank top and black leggings, which must pass for slobby house gear for her.

“Where’s my phone? I need to—”

“—talk to your people, yeah, yeah. Your little purse is on the end table behind you,” Aranea explains, gesturing with her chin.

Crowe’s gaze darts between the offered drink and her beaten up clutch. In the end, she accepts the drink _and_ grabs the clutch, finding her phone and her custom device right where she left them. Crowe takes the phone in one hand and pops up the holder she has on the back of it and enters her passcode.

8 missed calls. 12 missed text messages. Most from Nyx, but a couple from Lib, too. Crowe glances up at Aranea, who takes a seat on the couch next to Crowe’s blanketed feet as she watches.

“If I tell them I’m safe, will I be lying?”

Aranea rolls her eyes and gives a tiny (adorable) snort. “If me or my boss wanted you dead, I would have let you fall off the damn helicopter earlier, not carried you up to one of my hideaways _and_ given you my favourite blanket _and_ fixed you a drink. You Galahdians are a distrustful lot. I’ll be honest—I can’t let you leave tonight, but you’re free as a bird tomorrow, once our people get the heat down.”

Crowe opens up her messaging app and composes a brief text to Nyx.

 **[Magus 01:02]:** Safe for now. Home tomorrow. Details then.

Once she hits send, Crowe puts the phone facedown on the end table and studies Aranea. As she stalls for time, she takes a long sip of the drink, satisfied when she tastes a heavy pour of quality vodka beneath the cranberry juice. She’s pretty sure she’s going to have nightmares about that rope ladder for weeks, but right now, none of her instincts are telling her she’s in danger.

She wonders if those instincts might be muted by the woman sitting next to her, by how she’s just as beautiful stripped of makeup and fancy clothing as she is in it, by the way her blood quickens in her veins when Aranea meets and holds her gaze. Even with the bruise darkening one corner of her lips, Aranea manages a brilliant smile.

“Sorry about the headbutt,” Crowe offers.

“I asked for it. Literally,” Aranea says.

An awkward moment of silence stretches between them. Crowe fills it by taking more long swigs of her drink, until the thick crystal glass is nearly empty. Aranea leans back on the couch and extends one arm along the back of it, sipping on her drink, gaze finally torn from Crowe and fixed on some point on the far wall of the apartment.

“Won’t—” Crowe considers calling Ardyn by name, but since Aranea didn’t, she won’t either, “your boss be upset that you didn’t get the job done tonight?”

“Wasn’t really high on their priority list. They’ve already gotten my report.”

“So they know about me.”

“Had to, Miss Altius. There’s not really _hiding_ things from my boss, not when they really want to get to the bottom of something. The fact that you helped get us out of there went a long way in their estimation.”

“You realize tonight wasn’t some kind of political statement, right? My actions aren’t reflective or representative of Galahdian interests.”

Aranea turns her head towards Crowe and gives her a thoughtful look, her wide green eyes serious. “Which ones? The one where you stole a boatload of secure, encrypted data from Insomnia’s biggest casino, or the ones where you trusted me to help you escape instead of reporting back to your leader?”

Crowe swallows around the lump in her throat, but she doesn’t break eye contact with Aranea. “The latter.”

“Then whose interests _were_ they?” Aranea leans in as she asks the question, palms flat on the couch on either side of Crowe’s hips. 

She supposes there’s no point in trying to deny it. Crowe lifts a hand to Aranea’s cheek, draws her the last tiny bit of distance closer, and kisses her, slotting her mouth against Aranea’s. She keeps the kiss chaste, and when she draws back, she gives Aranea her answer.

“Mine.”

“That’s what I was hoping to hear,” Aranea admits, eyes dark with desire. “You’re an incredible woman, Miss Altius, and if circumstances were different, I think we’d make a pretty spectacular team. Don’t you?”

Instead of answering Aranea’s question, because the truth of this situation is complex and riddled with far-reaching implications, Crowe changes the subject. “You can call me Crowe.”

“Crowe,” Aranea murmurs thoughtfully, maintaining eye contact as she considers. “I like that better. Way less formal.”

When Crowe leans in to steal another kiss from Aranea, to drink her down, to ride the high of being alive, of hearing her name from the other woman’s lips, Aranea stops her with three gentle fingers on her lips.

“You’ve been through a lot tonight, so, here’s my suggestion. Take a shower. Have another drink, if you want, because the bar’s open and I’m sure you can find something you like. Really think about this. You don’t owe me anything, and it might be easier to leave tomorrow if we keep our hands off each other tonight,” Aranea suggests.

Crowe hears the words—she does—but her focus keeps going to the hollow of Aranea’s throat, watching the pulse beat beneath the thin, pale skin there. “You saved my life.”

“And you saved my ass by getting us on wheels, so that makes us even. Sometimes, you do a thing, even the best intentioned thing, and you have to live with the consequences after.” The words have a weight behind them that makes Crowe think she’s not only talking about their situation here. Aranea stands up and finishes her drink before letting the empty glass dangle from her fingers. “I like you, and I won’t say no if you decide you want to fuck because _you_ want to, but you need time to think about it. My bedroom’s easy to find.”

With that, Aranea walks away, disappearing inside the aforementioned bedroom and leaving Crowe alone with her thoughts.

Crowe takes Aranea up on her suggestion about the shower. The washroom is easy to find too, and there’s already a fluffy towel and black silk robe waiting for her. She snorts out a quiet laugh—clearly Aranea had been thinking about this while Crowe was taking an involuntary nap. The longest part of undressing is removing the multitude of cosmological hairpins from her hair, setting each one on the countertop with a delicate clink. The marble interior of the shower has a small bench and two shower heads, and as soon as the warm water hits her from both sides, Crowe lets out a blissful sigh.

She really shouldn’t do this. While the Izunias aren’t their _enemies_ , per se, they’re certainly not allies, because her family has neither. Nyx would call her an idiot, and she might deserve it… but then again, Nyx ends up in the Amicitia heir’s bed far too often for her liking, and the Lucis Caelums may as well _own_ the Amicitias for how close they are.

For one night, she’d like to think of something other than politics, than move and countermove, than the butterfly effect of every action she takes.

Crowe slides her hand over her breasts, down her stomach, and brings it to a stop at the apex of her folds. She cups herself with her palm before parting her lips with her fingers, giving herself a few delicate strokes, drawing her essence up towards her clit, surprised at how wet she is from her thoughts and one kiss.

Nyx will have to deal with it, she decides.

It’s a struggle to draw her hand away, but the object of her desire is in the adjacent room, and when Crowe makes up her mind about wanting something, she doesn’t hesitate. Washing her hair and body have never felt so time consuming, but eventually she finishes, stepping out of the shower into the steam filled washroom. Crowe plucks the towel from the top of the vanity and dries off, then considers the robe.

She leaves both robe and towel behind.

Once she’s in front of Aranea’s bedroom door, Crowe gives two curt knocks and pushes it open.

Aranea sits in her massive bed, scrolling through her phone with one hand. The only light in the room is the soft, yellow glow of the lamp on her nightstand. As soon as the door opens, she lifts her eyes from the screen below her, and as she sees Crowe, she gives a sharp inhale that pleases Crowe to hear.

“I’m sure,” Crowe says simply, standing proud as Aranea devours her with her gaze, “if you are.”

“Get over here,” Aranea commands from the bed with a seductive, sultry smile, and so help her, Crowe goes.

If it’s a mistake, it’s one she wants to make badly.

As soon as Crowe climbs into bed, Aranea wraps her arms around her shoulders and pulls her into a heated kiss, tongue sliding past Crowe’s lips in a confident sweep. Crowe gives a tiny sigh through her nose as they kiss; Aranea tastes of cranberry, and the velvet warmth of her mouth is intoxicating, and every fantasy she’s ever had about the woman is coming true. Not only did she escape with her life, she’s safe, and Aranea’s hands are cupping her bare breasts, giving them a gentle squeeze as she rubs her thumbs back and forth against them, and it is _wonderful_.

Who gives a shit about the political ramifications?

Aranea breaks apart from Crowe long enough to sling her singlet over her head and shimmy out of her leggings; Crowe’s breath hitches in her throat as she realizes Aranea wears nothing underneath them. She’s as gorgeous as Crowe’s imagination made her out to be, breasts full and perfect, rosy nipples pebbled into beautiful points, pale skin smooth and unmarked save for a handful of paler scars. Crowe knows she’s staring and can’t help it, and even when Aranea begins to trace the forked lightning decorating her hip bones, she continues staring, eyes drawn Aranea’s taut stomach and the neat thatch of silvery hair between her thighs.

“Always wondered where you had your Galahdian tattoos,” Aranea muses, and her touch changes from soft to sharp as she drags her nails across them with a grin.

“Now you know,” Crowe murmurs, capturing Aranea’s lips in another kiss, and this time it’s languid and slow, the heat of it building as surely as the urgent ache low in Crowe’s belly.

“Wonder how they taste.” Aranea gently rolls them over until Crowe rests on her back and begins to move down Crowe’s body, peppering random patches of skin with kisses. She pauses to suck on one of Crowe’s nipples leisurely, as though she has all the time in the world, and by the time she moves to lavish the other one with the same attention, Crowe makes a low noise of relief at the pleasure of it.

She does make her way to the purple tattoos decorating Crowe’s hips and presses kisses to those too. Every inch of ink is covered by Aranea’s full lips, and when Crowe gasps as she starts to trace the lines with her tongue, Aranea’s laugh is quiet and hot. Her tongue gets dangerously close to Crowe’s core, but at the last second, Aranea pulls back, eyes dancing with desire and mirth.

“Guess I have to stop there,” she teases, her hands gripping Crowe’s thighs and squeezing.

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” Crowe pants, hips jerking up of their own accord, desperate for any kind of friction. She’s so wet that she can feel her lips slide against each other, her cunt swollen and sensitive.

“You’d be surprised what I’d dare,” Aranea says, quiet as a promise. But then her tongue sweeps across the seam of Crowe’s pussy, and her calloused fingers are spreading her lips, and Crowe is drawing her knees back and parting her thighs and gently threading her fingers through Aranea’s hair.

Aranea is a torturously slow, torturously attentive lover. She licks at Crowe, teasing, exploring every inch of her intimate flesh with her tongue. She continues downward, the tip of her tongue brushing against Crowe’s entrance, and Crowe can’t stop the whimper that escape her lips when she does or the tremble in her limbs. By this point, she’s teetering on the edge without her clit ever being touched.

“Aranea!” Crowe cries out as the same tongue slides inside her, brief but no less intense for its brevity.

The way Aranea moans against her cunt suggests this might be what she was waiting to hear, because she licks her way back up and begins to suck on Crowe’s clit in earnest.

She’s so worked up, so sensitive, that she gives in within minutes of Aranea’s lips and tongue on her clit. Crowe loses count of how many times she comes. If the first wave of of her pleasure is a tsunami, then the rests are aftershocks, tiny and persistent and no less wonderful for it, eroding her foundation until she turns to rubble beneath Aranea’s touch. Her lips shape senseless words, but foremost among them is Aranea’s name, over and over and over again.

By the time she drifts back to reality, she finds Aranea watching her with pleased, curious eyes. The fact that her pale pink lips and her chin glisten with Crowe’s wetness does not escape Crowe’s notice.

“How do you feel about returning the favor?” Aranea asks huskily.

“As long as I don’t have to move.” Crowe laughs. “I don’t think I can.”

“The good news is you don’t have to.” Aranea crawls up the length of the bed and kneels beside Crowe, spreading her thighs. She reaches down and brushes a strand of Crowe’s sweat-damp hair out of her face. “You sure?”

“As someone I once knew said,” Crowe begins, reaching for Aranea and skirting her hands over her strong, pale thighs, “get over here.”

As Aranea straddles her face, Crowe gives a quiet moan, and when Aranea lowers her cunt to Crowe’s face, thighs taut as she holds herself within each reach, Crowe begins to lick at her folds. The first taste of her spirals through her blood like fine wine—she’s the tiniest bit sweet beneath the clean, natural salt of her, and Crowe finds herself enthusiastically drinking her essence down.

She doesn’t have the same patience as Aranea and, once she’s satisfied that she’s tasted Aranea to her satisfaction, licks back and forth against Aranea’s clit, paying close attention her reactions to determine what works fastest. Crowe watches as Aranea grips the headboard and drops her head between her shoulders, breasts swaying as she begins to rock her hips in tight motions, gently grinding against Crowe’s mouth.

It is perfect.

It’s even more perfect when she begins to shudder above Crowe, gasping as Crowe licks along one side of her clit. “A little harder,” Aranea pants, and Crowe follows her instructions, and _then_ Aranea comes, her walls fluttering in rhythmic pulses against Crowe’s lips, her body shaking and trembling, hips jerking forward against Crowe’s mouth involuntarily.

After a minute of catching her breath, Aranea glances down at Crowe with a wicked, desirous smirk.

“Again?”

“Please.”

It’s dangerously easy to lose herself in Aranea, and lose herself she does, falling and falling with no end in sight, her _want_ opening up a bottomless chasm beneath her. Aranea fills Crowe in every way possible, from the beauty of her gaze in the soft light of the bedroom to the fullness of her fingers working in and out of her slick, hot core, and each time pleasure dissolves her, she reforms wanting more.

By the end, when they’ve exhausted each other, when their sweat-damp limbs are tangled together, when Aranea caresses Crowe’s breasts and hips and thighs and hair in idle passes, Crowe realizes how true Aranea’s words were.

It would be hard to leave.

* * *

Aranea wakes up in bed alone.

Last night was full of surprises, most of them pleasant, but the fact that her apartment is down to a single occupant isn’t one of them. After all, she’d given her security team express instructions to allow Crowe the freedom to go home. It’ll be trouble enough as is if Ardyn ever figures out that she never interrupted Crowe’s thievery of The Leviathan’s database, let alone having the tight-knit Galahdians making her life hell in subtle ways for a slight against one of their own—even though they mostly keep their hands clean, these days. 

Still…

Never hurts to dream, right?

Aranea, whose schedule for the day is now a whole lot tighter after the entertainment at the casino, forces herself from the comfort of bed, pulls on her discarded clothes, and makes her way to the washroom. A quick shower, then straight back to work.

As she pushes open the door, flicks on the light, and pads across the washroom floor, a glitter on the countertop gives her pause. A few more steps brings her close enough to see one of Crowe’s many hairpins resting by the sink, one in the shape of a crescent moon, encrusted with diamonds and rubies. Aranea picks up the hairpin and worries it between her fingers. She closes her eyes and conjures the image of Crowe, rich brown eyes glassy with pleasure, messy chestnut hair fanned out like a halo on Aranea’s pillow. When she opens them, her olive gaze drops to the jewelry in her hands.

Her loyalty has always gone where the money is, and Ardyn shows no sign of reducing his generous compensation for her hard work anytime soon. But nothing says she can’t maintain a connection with the Galahdians—in fact, that’s just smart business sense (or so Aranea tells herself).

Besides, it would be rude not to give Crowe her expensive hairpin back.

Aranea clutches the moon in her fist, meets the gaze of her reflection in the mirror, and grins. 


End file.
